>> cenk: all right, if you want to watch the whole sherrod brown interview i had with the progressive senator from ohio, go to youtube.com/text yt interviews. "viewpoint" is next. stay right here. >> john: rand paul completes his efic 13 hour drone attack filibuster and promises to go back to being the socially backwards ayn rand acolyte liberals love to hate. the department has promised to look into drones that drop ayn rand novels from the sky. arkansas republicans have struck a blow against abortion, the most restrictive law in all of america. if they can just get rid of reading, they'll have the perfect state at least women still have the right to leave arkansas. >> barack obama takes a group of republican senators out for a fancy dinner. sean hannity demands to know why this president so obviously hates lunch. today is the birthday of bryan cranston comedian wanda sykes

and the late great singer-songwriter townes van zandt. on this date, u.s.a. for africa's "we are the world" was released to the world bringing people of all nations all races and creeds together say in unison, why the hell is dan aykroyd on this record? this is "viewpoint." >> john: good evening, i'm john fuglesang. this is "viewpoint." president obama hasn't given up hopes yet for a grand bargain with republicans that would both raise taxes and slash the deficit. even if that means cutting social insurance programs which it would. but with a sequester now law despite mr. obama campaigning against it, he's now trying a new kind of outreach to the g.o.p. call it dining diplomacy. this afternoon, the president broke bread with house budget

chairman paul ryan and his democratic counterpart ranking member chris van hollen. last night, mr. obama threw a two-hour dinner for 12 republican senators at washington's jefferson hotel. according to nbc news, they focused on the on-going battles over the debt ceiling the budget and the sequester apparently without throwing any cutlery. two well-fed republicans senators john mccain and mike johanns seemed pleased. >> all i can say is we had a nice evening. >> his goal is ours. we want to stop careening from crisis to crisis. >> john: the senators may have even learned something. because according to nbc news, again, when the dinner was over and i quote... >> john: to think just like bill o'reilly, all they had to do to find his cuts was just

look at the white house web site on the fancy internet because some republicans might like what they see. progressives should really take a look at that, too, because the president's proposals don't necessarily show the balance he insists is necessary to deal. the president is offering republicans $930 billion in program cuts plus another $100 billion locked from social security benefits in return for $580 billion in revenue. not exactly -- progressives should take heart boehner says any additional revenue is still a deal breaker. >> i'm hopeful something will come out of it. but if the president continues to insist on tax hikes, i don't think we're going to get very far. the president doesn't believe that we have a spending problem i don't know if we're going to get very far. >> john: for more, let's go to john nichols washington correspondent for the "nation" magazine.

his latest piece in the magazine is "time for a right to vote constitutional amendment." he wrote this week about the battle over medicare. thanks for joining us. >> good to be with you john. >> john: great to have you. you wrote earlier this week that paul ryan was still floating the idea to reform medicare by raising the eligibility age as high as 59. after some republicans objected to this, apparently that is said to be off the table. so is congressman ryan's assault on medicare over for now? >> not at all. this is a guy who keeps coming back looking for medicare any time he wants money. that makes sense. i mean medicare is a big budget. you're talking in line items of hundreds of millions and billions so it is logical that he goes after it. but the bottom line is that he has made a commitment to his caucus to balance the federal budget in ten years. that is something a couple of years ago he said couldn't be done. he didn't even try to do that. now, he's trying to fit into that narrow zone.

and i think on monday, when he went to his caucus, he was honest. he said to him look, the only way you can figure this out if you're not going to raise taxes on wealthy people, if you're not going to negotiate with the drug companies due to things you should do is going to be to start implementing deep cuts in medicare at a higher age than had previously been suggested. that's where you got -- they promised 55. now they're moving it up to 56, 57. >> john: i have no doubt that congressman ryan is serious about balancing a budget. i'm not sure if he's been told that no republican president has been able to do that since nixon. he insisted he's about saving medicare for future generations. is that how you read it, john? saving medicare? >> no, i mean if you were saving medicare, why would you tell people under the age of 55 that they're going to get something different? now, i don't know exactly you know, how he defined things. i don't know how you define the

word "it" or "there" but it strikes me in this case, the word "save" means to retain, to keep it. and that's not what paul ryan has been proposing. what he's been proposing is a radical change, such a radical change that members of his own caucus get terrified when he talks about tinkering with the age at which he implement it. >> john: we learned during the campaign last year with governor romney, they're fond of saying things like no seniors will have their medicare taken away from them. of course, anybody under age 55 would have been hurt by the voucher plan. his budget is scheduled for release next wednesday. he said we shouldn't expect any surprises. so john, could that mean he is going to try again to turn medicare into a voucher program like he floated with governor romney last campaign season? >> i think that there's very little question that he is going to propose a radical change in medicare for people under a

certain age be it 55, 56. that radical change, sometimes referred to as premium support and other names is really a voucher program. and it is a program where you say to people we're going to give you a chunk of money. you go out and find yourself some insurance. well, call me crazy but i think the insurance companies are going to adjust accordingly and a lot of seniors under such a plan would end up not only paying into federal money whatever amount they got but quite a bit more. >> john: can medicare costs be lowered in a way that won't cut benefits? >> absolutely. this isn't even a debatable point. start to negotiate on the prescription drug costs. that's something that other agencies of the government do, it is something that should have been done initially when they put the program in. you save a lot of money there. you also can find a whole bunch of other -- you know, rational ways to make the program more

efficient that do not make cuts. one of the bottom lines is this. medicare is a single payer program. it is a program that works because it is well organized via the government. as you put in different cost controls and different approaches that seek to make that program work, if your goal is to make sure you have the highest quality benefits for people, not cutting them, yeah, there's ways to make cost savings, of course. >> john: senator bernie sanders and pete defazio introduced a bill that would strengthen security. but the president's proposal does seem to weaken it. what do you think of barack obama's grand bargain proposal? should progressives embrace this, despite the cuts to insurance he seems to be offering? >> the president was re-elected on a promise to defend social security medicare and medicaid. it is something voters understood. it is one of the reasons why he did way better in the election than even his own people had expected. so americans want him to fight for these programs. i think that any kind of grand

bargain that begins to undermine the programs is a very dangerous game. not just as regards to the programs but also politically. remember, george bush got in a lot of trouble when he said during a campaign, read my lips, no new taxes then he turned around and raised taxes. i think there's a lot of political danger if you say in a campaign you're going to protect social security, medicare and medicaid and then you start to assault them. >> john: john nichols you made me feel a lot better about all of this. great to you have on the program. >> i appreciate being with you. >> john: and for more on the president's new diplomatic offensive and the prospects of a grand bargain we're thrilled to be joined by the one and only mr. bill press. host of the "bill press show." welcome "full court press." good evening. how are you sir? >> bill: hey john, how are% you? >> john: great to have you. >> bill: great to be here. >> john: a week ago sir president obama was on the road attacking our republican friends over the sequester. lunch and dinner invitations

weren't mentioned a week ago. what happened in the past seven days bill? >> bill: i guess i would say welcome to washington, d.c. the city of broken promises. look, john first of all let me say i think myself, that any meeting with any republican is a waste of time. i mean that's where i start. but i have to tell you in this town, this is the town where things get done best when you have members of two parties who fight like hell during the day and then respect each other enough to kick back and have a couple of drinks and talk things over in the evening. that's what i think you're see,. i'm not too worried about this. you know what i like about it? mitch mcconnell wasn't at the dinner last night. you cannot deal with mitch mcconnell. who was not at lunch today? eric cantor, john boehner wasn't there. mccarthy from california wasn't there. >> john: obama was with the reasonable ones.

>> bill: that's a strategy is to pick the people off that he needs -- he needs some republican votes to get anything done. pick those people off and isolate the hard-liners then maybe we can move forward. >> john: it is a big relief because the last time this many republicans met for dinner in d.c., it was to obstruct the president, not is to have him buy them sea bass. you had chris van hollen on your program, still carried on current before his lunch date with the president. what did chris van hollen expect from the meeting and what do you think he expects from the budget negotiations going forward? >> bill: first, i have to say when you have breakfast with bill press and lunch with barack obama, that's a pretty good day i think for chris van hollen. what he told us is he did not expect to make any deal at lunch. he knew that. but he was hoping that they would just air their points of view, air their differences and let paul ryan hear the facts like the republican senators did last night that maybe they could even get paul ryan to understand

that obama is first of all, not going to accept his budget, not going to accept gutting medicare but does want to move forward and maybe inch him away from boehner and cantor. >> john: now that president obama's apparently trying to restart his grand bargain talks on the deficit should progressives and democrats let him know whether he ends these talks or not that social security cuts can't be on the table? a lot of people are worried any time the president sits down with paul ryan to talk strategy. >> bill: i'm worried about it. to answer your question, you're damn right. we progressives have to keep obama's feet to the fire. and when we do that, john, people like you and me, we get flak from our viewers right? but look that's our job. he's got to know social security should not even be on the table. it does not contribute to the debt. it does not contribute to the deficit. it is easy to fix if you raise the cap on the payroll tax, for example. you can fix it for another 70

years easily. social security, chain cpi forget it. social security, medicare, medicaid, sake resank. >> john: mr. press, i know you enjoyed watching bill o'reilly scream at combs like he was a bad intern. it includes social security and medicare cuts. a lot don't know about it. polls show those cuts are incredibly popular with both sides of the aisle. if the president offers them and republicans agree does barack obama own those cuts to those entitlements? >> bill: well, i think that's up to us. he did just win re-election promising, as john nichols pointed out again i agree with john nichols on almost every issue. the president promised not to touch social security, medicare and medicaid. i think it would be dangerous --

i don't expect the president to cave on those. i think it would be dangerous if he did. yes, he would own them if he did >> john: the house version of the house budge set due tuesday. senate version will come out a few weeks later. given where the parties are starting from, is any kind of reconciliation possible? if not, what is going to happen next with this big ugly mess? >> bill: i do think they're going to work this out. the paul ryan budget, from what we've heard inside the beltway here, it is going to be -- this year's budge set going to be worse than the last two and they were dead on arrival in the united states senate. that's, i think, what's going to save us. the budget isn't going to get to president obama. it will never get out of the senate. the senate republican senators aren't that crazy. >> john: the "bill press show" airs monday through friday from ungodly o'clock to holy god o'clock. i know you have to get to bed to get up at 3:00 a.m. to do your excellent show. >> bill: great to be with you. >> john: is rand paul still

talking in a way? yeah. [clucking]. everyone wants to be the cadbury bunny. cause only he brings delicious cadbury crème eggs, while others may keep trying. nobunny knows easter better than cadbury!

very, very excited about that and very proud of that. >>beltway politics from inside the loop. >>we tackle the big issues here in our nation's capital, around the country and around the globe. >>dc columnist and four time emmy winner bill press opens current's morning news block. >>we'll do our best to carry the flag from 6 to 9 every morning. >> john: it's time for our thing of the da day. it is gun reform dropout. i'm talking about senator tom coburn. the oklahoma republican had been working with three other senators on a bipartisan bill to expand background checks for gun sales. that's something everybody wants. the majority of nra members favor that. but senator coburn, the man with an "a" rating from the nra could

not accept one simple part of this very simple, very popular plan requiring gun sellers to keep sales records of the guns they sell. car dealers keep records. amazon.com keeps records. even some responsible drug dealers keep records but it is just too much to ask from somebody at a gun show. so new york senator chuck schumer who leads the group of senators is walking away from coburn and wants someone to replace him maybe republican who will actually dare cross the nra and risk a b plus rating. yesterday, like a punch in the stomach, i was forced on this very show to agree wholeheartedly with senator rand paul of kentucky, the man who spent just under 13 hours filibustering the nomination of john brennan for c.i.a. chief. confirmed today. he won't be able to play sting in the next fantastic four movie. because of questions he had about the u.s. drone warfare policy specifically, how the policy might apply within the united states. it turns out not everyone in the

world agreed with me and rand. >> mr. paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up libertarian kids in their college dorms. >> john: very clever line and he didn't write it. that zinger was actually courtesy of the "wall street journal" editorial board which also ripped senator paul today. senator paul's filibuster did however, catch the attention of attorney general eric holder who released a second letter stating... >> john: that's the entire letter. succinctly put to which senator paul responded... >> hooray for 13 hours yesterday, we asked him that

question and so there is a result in a victory. under duress and under public humiliation, the white house will respond and do the right thing. >> john: just like that, friends, it is okay to hate that smug rand paul all over again. let's bring in thom hartmann who hosts the number one nationally and internationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. thom, thank you so much for joining us. >> john, great to be back. >> john: great to have you back in bizarro world. i was amazed watching the filibuster last night. i'm thrilled to hear you talk about it. so many liberals criticizing rand paul for making a switch that most aren't liberal enough to make. it was odd to find myself agreeing with senator paul. how did feel? >> i had mixed feelings about it john. his point that the president does not have the power in the constitution to be judge jury and executioner. the president has the power to be executioner. that's given. but the judiciary the third branch of government is supposed

to do the judge and jury thing. that point was really well taken. i think it is a discussion that we have been needing to have since the patriot act was pushed through in 2002 and we haven't been having. so to the extent he may have furthered that discussion, i'm really pleased. on the other hand, this was rand paul kicking off his 2016 presidential bid. >> john:. [ ding ding ] >> no need for him to go to the floor of the senate and filibuster. this was purely a publicity stunt. by speaking for his first hour without taking a sip of water he was shoving it in the face of marco rubio. >> john: that's reading into it more than i dared thom. it was also about erasing the unpleasant memory of him getting into a slap fight with secretary clinton last month. does attorney general holder's second letter we just read mean that senator paul succeeded in his filibuster work? >> no, not at all. rand paul is claiming victory when he knows that letter

reflects no change in administration policy. the letter -- the second letter that holder said basically we would not kill somebody who was not engaged in combat against us on u.s. soil. that's been the position of the obama administration all along. the tricky problem is what does combat mean. >> john: exactly. >> we haven't had a declaration of war since 1941 in this country. so george w. bush invented this category called enemy combatants so they could be anywhere in the world including manhattan. it is like we need to have this conversation now. >> john: a lot of our democratic friends don't like to hear it but it has been continued that abuse. you hit the nail on the head. kill an american not engaged in combat on american soil.

what does engaged in combat mean? does it mean you're at a burger king and you think you're going to -- there is still a lot of wiggle room for the attorney general, don't you think? >> well, that's the tragic thing. it means whatever the executive branch interprets it to mean. the authorization for war in iraq and all of the other authorizations that bush requested and got they set the rules so loosely. now the executive branch can conduct itself pretty much any damn well way it pleases. that's not what the founders and framers had in mind. i think that's what most progressives, most conservatives, libertarians, it doesn't matter, right across the

board. the neocons most thing it's the way we should be going. >> john: there is a lot of g.o.p. hypocrisy. a brief clip of my favorite tennessee -- >> my colleagues, i don't remember them coming down here. they had a drone program back then. so what is it? all of a sudden that this drone program has gotten every republican so spun up. what are we up to here? >> john: i can handle with agreeing with rand paul. agreeing with lindsey graham kind of creeps me out. he told the truth right? >> as i said, democrats are -- progressives conservatives libertarians greens, you know, pretty much most americans think the idea of giving the executive branch unlimited carte blanche to kill people is a bad and dumb idea. neocons, lindsey graham is a neocon so bingo.

>> john: these republicans who didn't complain when bush was doing it and now they complain when obama was doing it. rand paul and his dad had been consistent. thom hartmann, you have the smartest radio show. thank you for coming on with us tonight. >> thank you john. >> john: see you soon. arkansas passes an abortion law that's so restrictive, it will definitely get struck down by the supreme court unless it doesn't. that's coming up. [ male announcer ] it's red lobster's lobsterfest our largest selection of lobster entrees like lobster lover's dream

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>> john: we conclude wtf pennsylvania week with the inspiring story of how a few pennsylvania republicans love their country so much and respect the electoral process so deeply, they're willing to remove all of that trifle and democracy that's been screwing up the last few presidential elections for them. now, y'all know what the electoral college is. that magical thing that gave the white house to george w. bush even though more people voted for our former boss, al gore. his empty office is a riot to

jump around in by the way. the republican national committee took a look at states where the people vote blue but the legislatures and governors are republican and told the republican lawmakers to enact a plan to manipulate the electoral college. now wisconsin and virginia both had a go at this but republicans were so busy manipulating elections there they forgot to manipulate the media there. there was such a public outcry that even paul ryan and virginia governor bob mcdonnell backed away from the scheme. pennsylvania however, did not get the memo. so governor tom corbin and dominic recently introduced a plan to rig electoral votes in the state of pennsylvania by allocating based on the percentage of the votes that the candidate receives. if this law were placed, it

would affect the electoral votes. no matter the pennsylvania has -- it is about the will of a few powerful people. to the loser goes the spoils. wtf, pennsylvania! i love you i love that you fired rick santorum. i love that you gave us rocky and i know it gets cold in your state but making your november election day seem like a warm election day in a third world banana republic, not the answer. the sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. (vo) only on current tv.

>> john: a joyful moment and long overdue. the president rethorsized the violence against women act which now has protections for lgbt victims, native americans and

undocumented immigrant women. add this to a drop in sexual violence against women for the last 15 years and the war on women is won and over, right? not even close because arkansas held a different kind of ceremony yesterday. over the government's veto the state legislature passed abortion restriction that flatly contradict the suns supreme court. the human heart beat says one cannot receive an abortion in an abdominal ultra sound detects a fetal heart beat. that can be at around 12 weeks into pregnancy about half the time allowed by the supreme court. this is, by far the most restrictive abortion law in the country and it will most likely get voided by the courts, most likely. or maybe just maybe this will reach the supreme court and challenge roe vs. wade. let's bring in terry o'neill president of the national organization for women and amanda marcotte, columnist for slate and blogger for pan daggen

on the rawstory.com. thank you for joining us. >> thanks, john. >> john: let's accentuate the positive. vawa, let me go to you amanda, what are your feels on the final signing of the violence against women act? >> it took them 500 days to do it. it is ridiculous because this was a noncontroversial, bipartisan bill before. it is indicative of how the republican party is getting swept up by the right. that they saw that for so long. it passed with pretty much everything that the democrats wanted in it. so i'm ecstatic about that. >> john: terry were you surprised so many members of congress didn't have a terrible problem with violence against gay women or undocumented mexican women or women that live on reservations? >> you know, i have to say, i was telling someone i was at the signing ceremony today and it really was a good moment. and i have been so focused particularly since the 113th congress started at get this

thing passed. now that it's passed, it has been signed into law i've been taking a step back and i find myself really angry at eric cantor, at the other republican leadership who have done all they could to derail this law that literally saves lives. i think that we have -- from the women's movement point of view, there were -- what, over 130 all republicans who voted against the violence against women act and they need to be defeated. we need to unseat them and there were 22 senators who voted against it. it is not okay. we have to defeat them, too. >> john: it is a shock to me. is it that popular among republican voters to support violence against women on reservations? i don't understand what the end game was in opposing this for so long. >> it was jaw-dropping. the attitude of, in particular, eric cantor and his staff was we can't give native american tribal authorities jurisdiction

over white rape suspects because you just can't trust those tribal authorities to treat white defendants fairly. you know, i thought my goodness. is this 1952 or 2013? and the good news is that 87 republicans turned their back on the majority leader. and voted their conscience which is a good thing. but i really think that eric cantor is not going to be the majority leader frankly all that much longer. >> john: it took two weeks of unbroken shame to make him do it. let's move on to the arkansas abortion law because it is pretty surprising. amanda, do you think there's any way this law can survive the courts? >> it won't survive the lower courts. roe v. wade is clear you can't restrict abortion until viability. 12 weeks is well before viability. there is no way a fetus could survive if it was delivered at 12 weeks. so it is not going to pass --

every court is going to test it against roe and say no. it could go all the way up to the supreme court. they technically have the authority, if they want to, to overturn roe v. wade. >> john: terry does it seem like they try to have a scheme to protect abortion laws while still protecting abortion rights? >> honestly, that, as in many other states, extremist tea partiers have taken over the republican party in those states and they've taken over some legislation. arkansas is one of them. i do think that there's a real threat to roe vs. wade. what's really amazing to me about that threat is that the 2012 elections, the post-election polling showed something like 70% of people in this country warrant roe v. wade to remain the law of the land. >> john: 77%. >> 77% yes. want roe v. wade to remain the law of the land.

between 30% and 35% of people who consider themselves pro-life want row versus wade to remain the law of the land. i think the supreme court will reveal itself as illegitimate. it could overturn roe vs. wade. that will be a problem for the court and for our democracy. >> john: we all know many voters who don't feel comfortable with abortion being used as a bit control device. who don't like the thought of abortion. they don't like the thought of it being outlawed even more. my parents would never have called themselves pro-choice but they always voted for rights because they remember what it was like before roe v. wade. i have a theory our republican friends don't care because abortion is the best fund-raising tool they've got. they put things up like this that they know will be knocked down. anti-abortion groups usually go after smaller victories. what's going on, amanda? >> i think part of it is maybe they've convinced themselves it is not that big a deal because

most abortions are still before 12 weeks. so i think they may feel like they're singling out just a small percentage of women that are getting abortions. but i also do think they've been taken over by true believers. the man who wrote this law is a wild-eyed, tea party true believer. there's just no doubt about it. and i think those kind of people maybe after 30 something years of anti-abortion rhetoric, they've start to the believe their own story. >> john: if you call yourself pro-life if you're against abortion rights, you have a right to fight for that in a free society. ter terry, for the women who want to protect women's reproductive freedoms, what can we do about this? >> have a electoral solution. i don't trust the federal courts anymore to protect women's rights as much as they should. we need to get those people out of office. my organization is beginning this year with a state by state effort. we'll be in virginia, new jersey hugely important elections going on. what we want to do is get the word out to voters about what's

at stake for women in the state legislatures. that's where women's rights have been pushed back and that's exactly where we need to be going over the next few years. we'll be there. >> john: terry o'neill is president of the national organization for women and amanda marcotte from slate. thank you so much for talking with me tonight. hope you'll come back as this situation is not going away. yesterday, we had a filibuster we can actually look at. we'll be catching highlights of it and special commentary coming up.

>> john: welcome back. your dreams are your ticket out. rand paul's filibuster yesterday was a worldwide trending topic on twitter. stand with rand was all over the place. and brad friedman of the internationally respected brad blog tweeted us about it saying... we totally agree with you brad. there will be a commentary on that coming up after this. however, how can he accept the

civil rights act when he still hasn't accepted the outcome of the civil war. we'll be having much more on this coming up on tonight's f bomb. if you have a comment for the show, tweet us at "viewpoint" or at john fuglesang or use the hashtag "viewpoint" or post it on our facebook page. now, in case you missed any of senator paul's nearly 13-hour filibuster yesterday, it was great tv. filibusters the way they should be done and here are some of the more interesting highlights. >> the point isn't that anybody in our country is hitler. i'm not accusing anybody of being that evil. many people will remember jane fonda swivelling herself around in the north vietnamese artillery -- >> i'm not a great fan of jane fonda. >> are you going to drop a drone, hell fire missile on jane fonda? >> you've been here awhile. let me give you some free advice, keep some water nearby. >> i wanted to give some small sampling of the reaction on twitter. stand today with senator rand

paul. stand with rand. stand with rand. stand with rand. i think the technical term for what the twitter verse is doing right now is called blowing up. >> let me just begin by quoting a modern day poet, his name is whiz khalifa. the godfather takes me back to another modern day pote by the name of jay-z. >> there are some limits to filibuster and i'm going to have to go take care of one of those in a few minutes here. [ laughter ] >> john: that's rand paul making a joke about urinating that's marco rubio talking about some rappers he would like to have arrested if they showed up and ted cruz talking about ayn rand who would hate ted cruz if she were still alive. it is tough to admit in this case though, i too, very much stand with rand. joining me now to discuss this and so much more are former senior advisor to president bill clinton, richard socarides. editor in chief for the contributor.com, miss tina due

pie and political comedian tim. he spoke for 13 hours. saxby chambliss joined in as well. did rand paul accomplish anything with the 13-hour filibuster? tina? >> yes because we're talking about it and when we have to talk about rand paul, it is usually when he does something stupid like say that just because the supreme court has ruled on obamacare doesn't make it constitutional. >> john: what did he accomplish with this? >> i think that he brought to light that -- the filibuster is broken. >> john: okay. richard? >> you know, i think -- don't give him too much credit for anything. but the one thing i would say is that it was good that someone finally stood up and did an old-fashioned filibuster. >> john: i agree. >> maybe going forward people will not be able to do this sort of behind closed doors secret

filibuster that nobody hears about. when you filibuster something in the senate, you ought to stand up for it. i thought it was terrific he brought that back. but i think that what he really did -- what he was really doing was taking advantage of an issue which sounds like it is not quite right just to get himself some publicity. a drone is like any weapon, right? so you know, it doesn't sound right that you could use a drone to kill an american citizen but if american citizens, in the case of potential terrorism what the attorney general general was saying if american citizens' lives are in immediate danger and immediate threat and you have to act quickly that the attorney general would authorize any appropriate use of force and that might be a drone. now it doesn't sound right when you say a drone could kill somebody on american soil. the president then kind of walked it back. >> john: especially jane fonda. bomb her last five films but not jane. >> they don't sound right because they're immoral counter

productive. >> john: it is how wars are going to be fought from now on. >> sadly, i wonder if other liberal democrats if it was the bush administration policy, it is inconsistent that we don't criticize. his policy is wrong. let me say that accomplishment is a semi erotic male, standing for 13 hours without a bathroom break is an incredible achievement. and hearing jay-z mentioned which never came out during strom thurmond's 24 hour rant. as you pointed out earlier in the program i wish more liberal democrats were standing with rand because it is a bad policy. he was right on a lot of things about never-ending war and all of that. i certainly haven't agreed with him in the past but he was right on last night. >> john: the strom thurmond filibuster didn't mention jay-z because he wasn't alive yet and he was trying to get jay-z from

getting the vote. >> don't you wonder what they did that for 24 hours. >> an aide had a bucket. >> john: rand said this morning because cnn asked him what he would do. he said that strom thurmond had some tricks to sneak out of the room and still keep the filibuster going. ?oan another guy who was running for president against rand paul, marco rubio america's sweetheart. every time he talks, seems to push himself further and further from the presidency. he quoted michael he evoked whiz khalifa and jay-z who a staffer carelessly put on his ipod. is this marco trying to show he's a regular guy and did anybody watching buy it? >> trying is the word. he tries very hard. i have to say as a comedian, it was a pretty good line about saying here's free advice, keep some water. >> john: he's milking that thing so hard i almost hurt.

>> every line he uses is a water joke. come on. >> better than the other lines. >> it is no longer a line now it is a shtick. i'm the water boy. >> john: speaking of people who exist outside of reality tucker carlson. tucker is on an almost completely defunct crusade to bring down bob menendez for allegedly using a prostitute in the dominican republic. however carlson was quoted speaking about david vitter's prostitution scandal. he really did hire one. back then, tucker said... >> john: richard you have be in politics for a long time. have you been seen a more blatant example of be careful what you wish for. >> didn't the woman say she was making it up? >> john: the woman in question said she had never seen

menendez. >> she was making it up. >> john: accused "the washington post" of lying. >> this whole thing with men endez is crazy. it is a vendetta. i don't know where -- who found this but good for them. >> john: tina, does this prove tucker carlson is to journalism what he is to "dancing with the stars"? >> yes. he's not a journalist. he's an agitator. completely different. like to call him a journalist is inaccurate and something he would say about someone who was also an agitator. >> john: you're right. >> clearly, i would have to say if it would be more like europe. i don't care what david vitter did or eliot spitzer or anthony weiner or bill clinton. i think we need to focus on policy. >> john: they care about what berlusconi did a little bit. really quick before break newt gingrich said he would be open to appearing on donald trump's celebrity apprentice all-stars which are not really

apprentices. wouldn't it be great if all -- >> it is like a rerun right? the last two years. off our existence was exactly that show. >> john: is newt right? would it help the g.o.p. brand if legislators were willing to go on a show like that? >> it might help his brand. no, i don't think -- if he distanced himself from donald, he's not a serious person. help their brand, distance themselves even more. donald trump is a celebrity and nothing more. they don't need to -- >> i kind of think a little reality tv would be good for the republicans. >> john: i feel like c-span turned into reality tv this week. my panel stays with me after the break as i give a hand and expand on good ole senator rand. don't go away.

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>> john: welcome back to "viewpoint." one more quick question for the panel. when is the last time you were pleasantly surprised by something a politician did?

richard socarides? >> you know, i thought what rand paul did was pretty pleasantly surprising in that he stood up for a procedure that i think needs standing up for. >> john: i agree. tina? >> i would say michael bloomberg if you think standing up for 13 hours is impressive, 36 hours by my count during hurricane sandy. >> john: very nice. scott blakeman? >> when rand paul said he believes the president -- any president should have the prerogative to pick whoever he wants. president should get to appoint whoever he wants. >> john: this brings me to tonight's very special f bomb. i stand with rand. i stand with rand. the filibuster man on the issue at hand. that drones unmanned which kill on command must forever be banned on american land. i stand with rand. i stand with rand. mcconnell's too bland and boehner's too tanned. but he's the man with the libertarian plan. with more freedom and liberty than you can stand there. is one thing i can't